OPINION: Is The 2nd Amendment Obsolete?

What affect will the recent Supreme Court decision have on gun crime in the Black community? While it certainly won’t help stop gun crime, it won’t necessarily have the large negative impact that one might think. The problem with gun violence is not legally owned guns but illegally owned guns. American gun laws make it very easy for people to buy guns legally and then sell them illegally to criminals in the inner-city and abroad, where they facilitate gang violence.

The right to own guns was determined by our founding fathers after a time of revolution and war. Times have changed greatly since then. We don’t have to worry about the English invading or attacks from Indians. While we must credit the founding fathers for being progressive enough to put freedom of speech, press and religion into the constitution, we must remember that they were not wise or progressive enough to extend those writes to African-Americans, women, or people who did not own property.

When our founding fathers decided to give everyone the right to bare arms, there were two types of guns, rifles and muskets. Today guns are a lot more lethal and easy to come by then in the 18th century.

Still guns are an important part of American culture. Making guns illegal would be impossible given the lobbying power of the NRA and American gun culture.

While our founding fathers could not foresee the automobile, everyone assumes that Americans have the right to drive cars. Still in order to drive a car you need a license and in order to own a car it must be registered and you need to have a license plate.If guns could be licensed and tracked like cars, it would be a lot harder for people to sell them illegally.

The problem with guns in the US isn’t the gun nuts and that NRA members are killing people, it is inner city gang-members who are buying the guns illegally from corrupt gun stores and people who take advantage of lax gun laws in these states.

Princeton University estimated in 2002 that gun violence cost America $100 billion dollars a year, $15 billion of which was attributable to gun violence against children. But as far back as 1992, annual treatment of gunshot wounds was costing US taxpayers as much as $126 billion.

Comedian, Chris Rock once proposed that we make bullets more expensive in order to stop murders. If bullets and ammunition were regulated and given serial numbers, police could easily trace the bullets to the person who bought them.

Gun companies profit off guns, if they are used by law-abiding citizens, gang members, or third world militias. There has to be a way to work out the interests of American gun enthusiasts who aren’t violent criminals and the many people in the inner city who have to deal with the heavily armed criminals.

We also need to realize that our society cannot keep living in isolation from the rest of the world when globalization continues to unify progressive ideals like sensible gun control.

The World Health Organization estimated in 2000 that 70 per cent of American youth homicide involved guns. Compare that to the 30 per cent of similar deaths in the UK, Germany, France and Canada, and the 50 per cent in Mexico, and the message is clear: The United States needs to change its approach.

We have the right to free speech but you can’t yell fire in a crowded room or tell someone to kill another person. We have freedom of the press, but not freedom to libel someone. We have freedom of religion but not freedom to sacrifice animals. How far does the right to bare arms go? Can someone buy a nuclear bomb? Rocket Launchers? WMD’s?

Jamaica has much stricter gun laws than the US, but has more murders per capita. Most of the gun deaths are caused by guns, sold illegally from the U.S.. If the U.S. wants to stop gun violence without infringing on the 2nd amendment, they must do something about illegal guns.
Illegal guns are clearly more deadly than drugs, yet there is no war on illegal guns. If we are going to keep the 2nd Amendment, we must stop the flow of illegal guns. People should not have to have their neighborhoods destroyed by guns because a few people want them for fun and protection.